Hysteria Over Pedophilia

Letter to the editor

A friend of mine related to me that he recently was sitting in a public park on a bench. A police officer approached him and politely asked for ID, explaining that someone had called to report a suspicious man looking at children. The officer suggested that it might be a good idea for my friend to move to an area of the park without children, which he did.

I find this episode very disturbing. There is a growing presumption in America that there is such a high incidence of pedophilia among adult men that barring them from areas of parks frequented by children is a reasonable means of protecting such children from pedophiles. This is classic Salem witch-hunt hysteria.

I understand that we are very concerned about people who sexually abuse children. But my friend and I -- and you, too -- people with absolutely no history of pedophilia should not be shooed away from a section of any public park just because children are there.

Documented pedophiles should be barred, of course. Everyone else gets to go wherever they wish, and if they happen to come across something as magical as children playing, they get to look at them and feel good and laugh (on the inside to be safe) without being suspected of sexual perversion.